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A review by andreacaro
Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel by A. W. Jantha
5.0
This was two books in one. The first was a novelization of the 1993 film Hocus Pocus. The second is a bit longer, taking place 25 years after the first film was set and following Max and Allison's 17 year old daughter, Poppy.
The novelization of the film is exactly what it says on the tin - there are minor additions in it to set up the sequel, but you're still getting the exact same plot, the exact same characters, the exact same dialogue, the exact same ending. My childhood. I loved it.
Realistically, the sequel was bound not to stand up to the first part of the book and that's fine. I didn't really have any lofty expectations about what I was going to get with the new material and I think that's the reason why I rate this entire book so highly.
FIRST THING THAT'S KINDA COOL - Poppy, Max and Allison's 17-year-old daughter, is not heterosexual. Nope. She has a crush on one of her best friends, Isabella. Isabella is black. So the inclusion of LGBTQIA characters and POC characters is pretty cool.
So anyway, Poppy is pretty fed up with her parents being anti-Halloween as well as living with the belief she thinks they're kind of nuts because of their wild story about what happened with the Sanderson sisters so many years prior. Randomly, they decide to throw a Halloween party. Turns out it's because Halloween falls on a blood moon, when magic is supposed to be at its peak, and Max and Allison feel like Poppy will be safer at home.
So, naturally, Poppy skips the party with her friends to try out a Ouija board at the old Sanderson house to prove her family's story wrong. What she doesn't know is that Isabella's ancestor is Elizabeth Sanderson, sister to Winifred, Mary, and Sarah. When the original witch trio disintegrated, their spellbook did not and found its way into Isabella's hands. The book is inherently evil - a fun twist I thought was smart - and through the Ouija board fed Poppy and her friends a soul trade spell. The spell brought the sisters back from Hell and banished her parents and aunt Dani (yes, she makes a cameo) to Hell in their place. The clincher is, unlike the original film, the spell isn't over at midnight, the spell becomes permanent at midnight. So Poppy and her friends (including crush Isabella, who gets turned into a Boston terrier) have to go on a wild hunt for a missing magical bloodstone that they must destroy before it's too late.
One of the fun things about this was seeing how the witches handled modern technology. Mary gets a whole of a cellphone and dubs it a "memory box" and it was funny seeing her trying to figure out, then Sarah figures out a way to sing her song hypnotizing children to her via phone calls. One thing about Mary - there was a weird part where she sang about independence from Winifred, but not much was done with that in the story. It felt like a missed opportunity to add depth.
Also, the sequel was full of Sarah running around screaming words over and over i.e. the way she did with AMOK AMOK AMOK in the film. It was a nod to the original movie, I realized, but it was a touch much at times.
Whatever, I loved this.
The novelization of the film is exactly what it says on the tin - there are minor additions in it to set up the sequel, but you're still getting the exact same plot, the exact same characters, the exact same dialogue, the exact same ending. My childhood. I loved it.
Realistically, the sequel was bound not to stand up to the first part of the book and that's fine. I didn't really have any lofty expectations about what I was going to get with the new material and I think that's the reason why I rate this entire book so highly.
FIRST THING THAT'S KINDA COOL - Poppy, Max and Allison's 17-year-old daughter, is not heterosexual. Nope. She has a crush on one of her best friends, Isabella. Isabella is black. So the inclusion of LGBTQIA characters and POC characters is pretty cool.
So anyway, Poppy is pretty fed up with her parents being anti-Halloween as well as living with the belief she thinks they're kind of nuts because of their wild story about what happened with the Sanderson sisters so many years prior. Randomly, they decide to throw a Halloween party. Turns out it's because Halloween falls on a blood moon, when magic is supposed to be at its peak, and Max and Allison feel like Poppy will be safer at home.
So, naturally, Poppy skips the party with her friends to try out a Ouija board at the old Sanderson house to prove her family's story wrong. What she doesn't know is that Isabella's ancestor is Elizabeth Sanderson, sister to Winifred, Mary, and Sarah. When the original witch trio disintegrated, their spellbook did not and found its way into Isabella's hands. The book is inherently evil - a fun twist I thought was smart - and through the Ouija board fed Poppy and her friends a soul trade spell. The spell brought the sisters back from Hell and banished her parents and aunt Dani (yes, she makes a cameo) to Hell in their place. The clincher is, unlike the original film, the spell isn't over at midnight, the spell becomes permanent at midnight. So Poppy and her friends (including crush Isabella, who gets turned into a Boston terrier) have to go on a wild hunt for a missing magical bloodstone that they must destroy before it's too late.
One of the fun things about this was seeing how the witches handled modern technology. Mary gets a whole of a cellphone and dubs it a "memory box" and it was funny seeing her trying to figure out, then Sarah figures out a way to sing her song hypnotizing children to her via phone calls. One thing about Mary - there was a weird part where she sang about independence from Winifred, but not much was done with that in the story. It felt like a missed opportunity to add depth.
Also, the sequel was full of Sarah running around screaming words over and over i.e. the way she did with AMOK AMOK AMOK in the film. It was a nod to the original movie, I realized, but it was a touch much at times.
Whatever, I loved this.